Do You Have Magnificent Managers?

Many managers in CPA firms have the "manager" title just because it is a title that an experienced, long-time employee receives in a CPA firm. In relation to the work of the firm, they take care of clients and they take care of partners. As managers, they are often STILL the workhorses.

My mind is filled with questions about CPA firm managers and what you are doing to help them help your firm:

· Why aren’t they more skilled at taking care of the people they supervise?

· Have you (Mr./Ms. Partner serving as their Boss), invested (yes, spent lots of money) on the development of their emotional intelligence and their understanding of how nurturing relationships with people build a solid foundation for an organization’s success?

· Have your managers studied and been trained on the power of generational differences?

· Do they understand and enthusiastically reach-out to the youngest CPAs and play a key role in keeping them in the CPA profession?

· Are your managers, “people” people?

· Are your managers able to bring in business?

Here are some more important questions:

· Do you, CPA firm owner, study what behaviors make a front-line manager in your firm successful and makes them “the” manager everyone wants to work for?

· Do you spend a huge amount of time selecting your managers?

· Do you have the best training program possible for your managers, not to teach technical accounting skills, to teach people skills?

· Do you formally, rigorously and enthusiastically mentor your managers?

· Are you willing to leave a manager slot open until you can fill it with someone who is awesome?

· Do you consider promotion decisions for managers as thoroughly as you do for partners?

“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” - -Paul Dickson